I had noticed that Yuzuki was secretly crying alone in the middle of the night.

There was no mistaking it, I could hear the faint sobbing from her room every night.

Unable to do anything, I wrote a story about her being happy. It was meaningless, but I wrote as I prayed. If there was anything I could have done for her sake…

One night, she wasn’t crying. I felt like she would be in the living room…

I slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the door.

Orange glow of the table lamp casted an endearing shadow over her figure. Warm lamp light and the purplish blue outside the window.

She turned around with a start when I tried to pry the door wider.

“Oh, Yakumo-kun, you’re awake?”

I noted a microscope on the desk as I approached. An antique. It was made of faded brass, with a simple tube attached to the base.

“Wow, what’s this?”

“I found it at an antique store. Cool, isn’t it? I bought it immediately. Can’t help myself, hehe.”

She slid her hips, opening up space for me to sit. When I sat down, our skin touched. Her body was warm in the chilly night.

I stared at the beautiful shape of the microscope, and then looked into the lens.

I saw translucent, square grains.

“You were looking at the crystals…?” I was aghast.

“I can’t look away from them,” she admitted. She tucked away stray strands of hair and looked into the microscope again.

A chill ran down my spine.

She was staring at her own death.

“It’s pretty—” she whispered. “And terrifying. Beautiful, simple patterns. Strange. It’s nothing like me at all, I’m complicated, disgusting, and yet…”

In my mind’s eye, the battlefield of Warsaw came to mind. Death, then bones, then ashes. Every living being’s destination was invariably the same.

It amazed me how simple, peaceful, and even beautiful it was.

“Looks a little lonely, doesn’t it?”

She let me have my look at the crystal.

“Maybe deep down, everyone wants to melt into such loneliness. Still, like the surface of a pond, no anger, no hatred, no sadness, no suffering… serenity. Slumbering to a gentle nocturne.”

Outside the window was Milan at night. The darkness was as deep as the bottom of the sea.

I felt like she was beginning to accept death. Maybe she began to feel that melting away into beautiful salt and dissolving into the night little by little wasn’t so bad after all.

“I wish the afterlife would be a more lively place,” I found myself saying, “Thousand people, with thousands of different kinds of beauty and ugliness, thousand different definitions of happiness. I hope there will be a thousand different kinds of salvation for a thousand different kinds of sorrow. I hope that everyone will be able to laugh together… Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

She smiled softly. “Yeah. It’d be amazing.”

She reached for the small bottle that had her salt, then poured. The salt rustled softly as they spilled out and formed a small pile.

Yuzuki used her remaining index finger of her left hand to break over the pile and draw a flower—a sand painting.

She smiled at me and I smiled back. I broke off the flower and drew a sand picture of a whale.

“Wow, that’s cute. Yakumo-kun, I think you have talent.”

“Hmp. A flying whale.”

“Can I have a whale like this in my afterlife?”

“Make it a first class flight.”

“Pfft” she puffed and leaned against me.

I felt her body heat more clearly than ever. I could feel her body heat, her breathing, and the small movement of her body with her every breath. My chin brushed against her silky hair. It smelled softly and pleasantly. I gently held Yuzuki’s thin shoulders.

She did not resist even a little.

Sweet, sorrowful silence passed between us.

“When I die—” she whispered, “I want to die where I was born.”

Her whispers were like cold blades piercing my heart.

“Let’s go home, Yakumo-kun. Let’s go back to where we belong.

 　　　９

In February, we moved back to Koriyama City. After such a long time at the Mediterranean coast, and with Yuzuki’s approaching death, Fukushima appeared somewhat gloomy after a long absence. 

She had an unreadable expression when we exited the Koriyama Station.

We rented a spacious apartment that was more than enough for the two of us. I took care of most of the troublesome procedures and paperwork. At the end of the furnishing, Yuzuki bought an artistic orange wall clock. We had a little trouble finding out which side it should face. It was fun.

Not long after that, she lost all her fingers.

I was now in charge of all the cooking and other chores. I started learning how to cook properly around then, studied hard, took my time, and made elaborate dishes.

She ate with great relish.

“Waah, that looks so delicious! You could be a cook!” She opened her mouth. “R-right, ah~n”

I fumbled with the forks and chopsticks a little, but managed to feed her. It must have been troublesome for her, but she seemed to enjoy it.

She had devised various ways to deal with her lost fingers. For example, She wore a rubber band around the back of her hand and used it as a grip. She used this to do tasks such as combing her hair and brushing her teeth… Nonetheless, she preferred to have me do it for her. She even asked me to be her lap pillow.

I was also in charge of washing her hair. 

“Yakumo-kun～” 

I took off my socks, rolled up my pants, and went into the bathroom. Yuzuki, with a bath towel wrapped tightly around her body, was sitting on a stool, waiting for me. She was also wearing rubber gloves to keep the crystalized stump on her hand from getting wet. 

I sat down and washed her hair. “And itchy spots, my esteemed customer?

“Ahaha!”

As I joked around, imitating a hairdresser, my heart was thumping wildly. Her white shoulders were smooth and firm, and the bath towel was slightly digging into her skin. The hot water made her hair the color of wet raven feathers, her neck even whiter, and the towel stuck to her body, giving her waist a seductive curve.

[Boobs! I like boobs!!]

I quickly pushed Furuta’s words from my mind.

As I washed her hair, melancholy rose in me. Her white skin was like snow, ready to melt away any moment.

My memory of her going through her mother’s harsh lessons as I watched through the double-paned window flashed across my mind.

I wondered if Ranko-san had ever taken care of her like this. What if she was looking for reassurance and consolation she never had as a child in me. 

Suddenly, Yuzuki somehow seemed small and frail.

Solemnly, I left the bathroom. Before I could close the door, she called me again.

I opened the door again to see what was going on, and was startled. She was naked in the tub, but from my angle, I couldn’t see anything… besides her white, slender leg she pulled up for me to see.

“Thanks for washing my hair! Here’s service!” Then, with a snap, she winked at me seductively.

I had never seen a Japanese person who could wink so well.

“Ah…um…thanks,” I mumbled.

Her face finally turned red. “What’s that reaction! Idiot! Pervert! Get out!”

Despite her lack of fingers, she expertly splashed water at me.

It was absurd. What did she expect me to do? Even to this day, I wasn’t sure what I ought to do.

 　　　10

“Don’t you want to go see your parents?”

That aggravated her.

“I won’t. I’ve cu myself off from those people.”

“What about once? They must have been worried…”

“I. Won’t. I’ll never meet them again.”

“I can see why you hated them, Yuzuki, but they love—”

“What do you understand?” she snapped. “In the first place, why are you meddling in my family matters?”

As a matter of fact, I had no right to say in the matter. As we continued this cohabitation, my desire to marry her consolidated. Still, we weren’t even lovers yet.

She went on, “Yakumo-kun, aren’t you addicted to dramaturgy?”

Dramaturgy, the study of dramatic composition…

“Just because the protagonist always made up with their parents at the end of the film doesn’t mean I will. Take a good look at reality.”

Oh, really? Was what I thought. Perhaps it was like she said, I had subconsciously steeped to such stereotypes. 

“I don’t want you to do that. People’s feelings are not that simple. People often say things like, ‘You have to take care of your parents,’ or ‘You have to forgive them because they are your family,’ as if they know what they are talking about, as if life would go along such a stereotypical template. In the end, those crappy movie plots were written by some blob who was blessed with a good family, lived in a privileged environment and had no imagination. I became a pianist thanks to those people, but as for the rest, I hate them. I’ll never forgive them! You’re no better than that Director Miller. Stop trying to fit people’s lives into a story like that.”

“Story…” The word carried a weight like no other.

At the time of Miller’s visit, I concluded that she didn’t want to be “consumed,” but it seemed that she detest narrativization too.

What exactly was a narrativization?

And by extension, what was a story?

In the end, why exactly did she wish for me to write a story about her?